Habitat restoration includes spawning fish. As Jeff Cederholm said, "Salmon are habitat". We are allowing something like 5% of the pre-industrial fishing escapement and that's not a problem? The food base fisheries are slamming those numbers down. The ocean itself is changing.

Until the fish runs show consistent increases we are willing too many in too many different ways.

I have noted before that a WDFW (current leadership) told a constituent that if they fixed habitat on their property that any additional fish were for killing, not spawning. Culverts an barriers are being removed and escapement goals at best are kept constant; in many cases the co-managers continue to lower them.

Lastly, this [Bleeeeep!] habitat in Puget Sound has produced (so I have been told) increasing anadromous cutthroat and native char and pinks. The MSY goal for the Puyallup for pinks was 19,000 and it did well when escapements exceeded half a million.

Yes, we need to fix habitat. That will REQUIRE dealing with human population. We also need to deal with the whole ecosystem and balance the species (pinnipeds for an easy, low-hanging fruit example) and we have to deal with the whole range of species from clams and krill on up.

The mistake we make, and WDFW supports this fully, is that we keep all of the issues in nuclear-hardened silos where there is no cross-communication.